Temporal scaling behavior of human-caused fires and their connection to relative humidity of the atmosphere

Abstract It has been found that many natural systems are characterized by scaling behavior. In such systems natural factors dominate the event dynamics. But in countries with high population density such as China and Japan, more than 95% of the forest fire disasters are caused by human activities. Furthermore, with the development of society, the wildland–urban interface (WUI) area is becoming more and more populated, and the forest fire is much connected with urban fire. Therefore exploring the scaling behavior of fires dominated by human-related factors is very challenging. The present paper explores the temporal scaling behavior of forest fires and urban fires in Japan. Our findings point out that although the human factors are the main cause, both the forest fires and urban fires exhibit time-scaling behavior. Similar distribution law characterizes the relative humidity.

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